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Manama: Saudi police are questioning a father on the suspicion of killing his 17-year-old daughter hours after a court sentenced her to six months in prison in a case of immoral behaviour.

The father was arrested on Tuesday after he took his daughter’s lifeless body to a hospital in Makkah and claimed that she had lost consciousness suddenly, local news site Sabq reported on Wednesday.

However, the hospital staff called in the police upon finding multiple bruises on her body. An investigation was launched.

A police team conducted a search at their home and discovered traces of blood from the victim who had been apparently beaten to death viciously.

According to Sabq, the girl, a high school student, had eloped with four young men two years ago.

She later told her father that she had slept in the classroom and on waking up, she left the school on her own to go home. However, she was abducted by men she did not know.

Story fabricated

The father believed her story and alerted the police. However, the investigation revealed that the girl had gone out with the boys and made up the kidnapping story to avoid her family’s wrath.

On Tuesday, a court issued its verdict in the case against her and the young men. She was to spend six months in prison and to receive 160 lashes.

However, the father, enraged with the situation, reportedly beat her to death.

Most online readers harshly criticised the father for his action, blaming him for failing to establish a positive rapport with his daughter and saying that brutality was not an option.

“A sound moral education and outstanding guidance often overlooked by parents,” Abu Rayyan wrote. “An adolescent daughter strongly needs her father’s compassion and affection. He needs to sit with her and be close to her in order to protect her from human wolves looking for preys.”

Need for counselling

Bardan observed that the girl was 15 when she allegedly went out with the young men.

“That is a very early age and she was, of course, emotionally fragile and needed counselling and affection from her parents to help her through the challenging phases of adolescence,” he said.

For Al Haqtan, there was no excuse for the father to beat his daughter to death. “That was totally inhuman and he had no reason to kill her by any religious or social standard,” he wrote.

Bander said that he appreciated the father’s situation as he faced social pressure. “However, the father acted in a fit of rage and should have looked for other solutions, like helping her to get married,” he wrote.

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